If you find yourself writing posts and pages on a regular basis which have the same structure, then this plugin would be a great addition to your WordPress plugin arsenal. Written by Vincent Prat, Post Templates plugin helps you save time blogging by letting you save and recall templates for writing posts and pages.

Screenshots

To create a template from scratch, you can use the new admin bar group “Templates.”

After clicking “New Post Template”, you will be brought to the edit template page.

After you’re finished creating your template, you can create a post from that template through the template edit page itself or the template management page.

To create a template from an old post, you can use the “Templatize” button on the post listing page.

What I Like About It

What I love most about this plugin is simply what it does. I am a WordPress plugin developer myself so I do a lot of “plugin updated” blog entries that all have the same structure. Before this plugin, I mimicked this functionality by keeping my own templates as posts in draft status. The problem with my technique is the big blue “publish” button and my tendency to click on colorful things. Classifying these template posts as real templates and removing the publish button just makes sense. There will be no confusion between which posts are a templates and which posts are actual drafts ready to be published. In addition to these benefits, this plugin saves me a lot of time navigating, copying, and pasting my own version of post templates.

The next thing I like about this plugin is the seamless integration with the WordPress admin interface. Just activate the plugin and it looks like your WordPress installation was shipped with this feature. By that, I mean the user interface is quite intuitive and I didn’t need to read any documentation to figure out how to use the plugin.

Another cool thing about this plugin is that it keeps user roles in mind. Authors are allowed to view and use post templates. Editors are allowed to to view, use, create, edit, and delete post templates. Administrators are allowed to do all of those things plus modify plugin options.

Last, there is a support forum up for this plugin and Vincent seems to be quite responsive to questions.

Possible Areas of Improvement

As of version 3.3.0, here are some drawbacks I found in this plugin:

It would be nice to have an ability to import and export templates so that users can use the same templates on multiple blogs. Currently, the importer feature is really a converter which upgrades the old plugin’s version of templates to be compatible with the new version.

I also notice that custom fields are not saved for templates. I can definitely make use of custom fields in templates.

It might be useful to have a link to create a template from the edit post page. Currently, the only way to create a template from a post is through the post list page.

Assuming the previous request gets fulfilled, it might also be nice to have the ability to hide the “templatize” button on the post listing page. This is because I don’t think people create templates that often. The button is taking up space when it doens’t need to.

Final Words

If you want to save time writing the same type of posts/pages, you should definitely give Post Templates a try. I know I’m happy with it.

Are you currently using Post Templates? How do you like it? What additions would you like to see in this plugin?

cSprites for WordPress plugin helps speed up your blog by reducing the number of requests made for images. When activated all images within a post will automatically be stitched up and displayed properly as compressed CSS sprites.

Screenshots

Before activating, all images within a post are being retrieved using separate requests.

After activating, all images are stitched together into one compressed image and retrieved using only one request.

The plugin then uses CSS magic to display these image sprites properly within the post.

Features

Quality and style settings let you specify the compression level for the stitched up image sprite.

Ability to include/exclude certain types.

Cache expiration tuning.

SEO Options for SEO nerds.

What I Like About It

cSprites for WordPress was written to do one thing (convert all post images into compressed image sprites to speed up your blog) and it does it very well.

Installation was very easy. Just download it, activate it, and all your post images automatically turn into images sprites.

Just because you use image sprites doesn’t mean that you should lose SEO. I like that this plugin does not ignore SEO and there are SEO options for displaying any ALT or TITLE text you want.

Next, this plugin supports caching image sprites, so it automatically includes external images into image sprites for you. Because of this, you are also saving external domain DNS resolutions to help make each page load even faster.

What I like most about this plugin is that it can be used in conjunction with WP Super Cache. In that scenario WP Super Cache helps you avoid PHP execution/MySQL queries, and cSprites for WordPress helps you reduce strain on your web server and improve front end page load time.

Possible Areas of Improvement

As of version 0.508, here are some drawbacks of this plugin:

PHP5 with GD Library is required for this plugin.

cSprites will not distinguish between PNG8 and PNG24 and will always sprite PNG images with PNG24.

When upgrading via SVN, “svn up” command gives “svn: Unable to lock ‘cache'”. I have to remove the cache directory, run “svn cleanup”, then “svn up” to upgrade via SVN.

You cannot use padding when displaying images or else it will show part of another image. It would be nice to be able to generate the image sprite with configurable padding so you can use padding when displaying images.

Final Words

If you can take advantage of this plugin (i.e. your host offers PHP5 with GD Library), then it is definitely worth a quick install.

Are you currently using cSprites for WordPress? Are you happy with the performance improvements? How much load time has this plugin saved you? What additions would you like to see in this plugin?

So, why not take the power of filters and integrate it with our very own WordPress? This is what Matt Walters’ plugin WordPress Filter hopes to establish.

Description:

WordPress Filter is a comprehensive post filtering & template system. It allows the user to define a set of simple “Catches” (criteria) to be met by a post, and then have a set of “Actions” applied to the post.

This plugin takes action whenever a Post is published inside of WordPress (including Posts coming in via XMLRPC). It can be used for many tasks, including creating your own mini plugins without ever having to leave your WordPress administration area.

Screenshot:

Review:

Working with this plugin is extremely easy. Follow the installation instructions and head over to Settings > WordPress Filter and begin to add your filters. Adding a filter is extremely simple. You can switch to the Add Filter tab to create filters.

You have the option to select the following criteria to choose from:

Post Title: Equals

Post Content: Equals

Post Content: Contains

Post Content: Doesn’t Contain

Post Excerpt: Equals

Post Excerpt: Contains

Post Excerpt: Doesn’t Contain

Post: Has Tag

Post: Has Category

Custom Field: Exists

Post Author: Equals

Comment Status: Equals

Ping Status: Equals

Having set one or more criteria, you then need to choose what action(s) you want taking place when the criteria is met. (Yup, I know that’s how filters work )

The plugin gives you the following options currently:

Title: Prepend

Title: Replace

Title: Append

Content: Prepend

Content: Replace

Content: Append

Excerpt: Prepend

Excerpt: Replace

Excerpt: Append

Tag(s): Add

Tag(s): Remove

Category(ies): Add

Category(ies): Remove

Comment Status: Equals

Ping Status: Equals

Having set this, go about the normal publishing of your posts. Whenever a post is published, the plugin matches it against the criteria lists and takes the appropriate action. This is extremely useful when you are blogging a series or if you are posting from your mobile device.

Then again, it works perfectly, if you want to use shortcuts while blogging and let the plugin do the donkey work.

Future Plans:

I’m going to quote the author on this one.

I am hoping to continue to expand on the Actions available to be taken when a post matches the criteria. Sending an email has been suggested as an example. I would also like to expand to allow more complex actions to be taken place. For example, instead of only prepending, appending, and replacing the Title for instance. I’d like to give the user the ability to just replace a word or set of words within the title, not the entire title itself.
As well, I am currently working on the ability to Import/Export filtersets (pairs of Catches (Criteria) and Actions). This would allow users to release their own mini-plugins without necessarily having to know any PHP or any of the WordPress backend.

What would you like to see added to the plugin? Or what would make you use it? What other actions would you like to see added to the plugin?

Would you like to review this plugin?

Due to lack of sufficient entries this week, we won’t be posting the reader reviews. So, it’s in queue for next week. This week, you’ll have yet another plugin to review, viz. this one.

As usual, you’ll have until Saturday, 28th March, 11:59pm EST to submit your review of any one of the following plugin to us.

Step 1 – Select the Plugin

The first step to starting the review, is well finalizing on which plugin you want to review, then downloading and installing the same on your blog. This could either be a dummy blog dedicated for this purpose or maybe your production blog itself.

Do you really need to install it? Well, the answer is obvious. Yes, you need to. Because without getting a hands on experience, you will never be able to write a good review. Unless you’re me J/k

Step 2 – Study the Page

Next, study what the plugin author has to say about his / her plugin. I love plugins that have a dedicated plugin page (not a post) on the plugin authors blog / website dedicated for this purpose.

I give negative points for plugins that don’t have their dedicated page or if they are bunched together with a plugin on a single page. Hence, this usually forms one significant portion of my WordPress plugin reviews.

Step 3 – Study the Plugin

Now, lets get down to studying the plugin. Here is where you have several options to select from and again this will vary from plugin to plugin.

First check if the plugin does what it is supposed to. This usually is the case, but while checking for this, you may stumble upon a bug or a point of contention that you’d like to bring to the author’s notice.

Step 4 – Feature enhancements?

Found something missing in the plugin? Would you like to see something that would make a significant difference to you? Maybe there’s a feature that would make you switch to this plugin, instead of a similar one you are using?

Jot this down.

Step 5 – Writing the Review

We’ve collected a lot of information. Now, it’s time to start the review.

Open your review with the plugin name. Maybe write a short intro on why you chose the plugin. Next write a description of the plugin as well as the features. Provide a screenshot or demo of the plugin if required.

While this is not part of your actual review, it provides an introduction to your plugin for the readers of your blog who are not aware of the same.

Next write your actual review. Include the information we collected in Steps 3-5. Remember to use heading tags i.e. <h3> and <h4> etc. to divide your post into appropriate reading sections.

You have until Saturday, March 21 – 11.59pm EST to send in your review to submissions AT wltc DOT net with the following information:

Subject line of the email: [APAD Plugin Review]:plugin name. Replace plugin name with the name of the plugin you reviewed.

Content of the Email:

URL of the review on your blog. Make sure this is a direct link to the post

An excerpt of your post. Maximum 50 words. This will be used by us.

]]>http://weblogtoolscollection.com/archives/2009/03/20/how-to-write-a-good-plugin-review/feed/5Plugin Review: WP Mollomhttp://weblogtoolscollection.com/archives/2009/03/15/plugin-review-wp-mollom/
http://weblogtoolscollection.com/archives/2009/03/15/plugin-review-wp-mollom/#commentsSun, 15 Mar 2009 19:00:55 +0000http://weblogtoolscollection.com/?p=5333We hate spam. We hate it so much that we always find solutions to spam. So, this week we continue our Weekly Plugin Review series with a review of an Akismet alternative called Mollom.

Description:

This plugin makes it possible to use the anti-spam services provided by Mollom on your own WordPress blog. What is Mollom? It’s a free anti-spam service that was founded by Dries Buytaert (Drupal) and Benjamin Schrauwen. The plugin can be used as a substitute for Akismet, Defensio, Spam Karma and others.

What does it do?

Mollom works much like Akismet: comments are sent to a central server which uses intelligent, self-learning algorithms to determine wether or not a comment is spam or not. Spam-classification isn’t a binary process and as a result, common anti-spam services perform bad when handling false positives. Mollom takes care of this. If it can’t clearly classify a comment, it will present the commenter with a secure CAPTCHA test instead of dumping the comment on an ever-increasing moderation queue that needs frequent attention. Mollom is a centralized service which can identify spammers across the network of websites who use Mollom. When a single spam-source is identified on one or more sites, the whole network will be protected against spam from that source.

The main target is to make it as less time/effort consuming to fight spam so that weblog administrators can focus on what really matters: blogging and having fun!

Features:

Easy install: Install the plugin through WP Extend or through the zip file. Register your site with Mollom to get a set of keys and configure the plugin.

Spam blocking: The plugin blocks spam before it’s even saved to the database. Only ham and comments for which a CAPTCHA has been successfully solved, will be saved.

Send feedback to Mollom: The plugin provides an alternate moderation module in the admin interface which allows you to send feedback to Mollom if, in your view, a comment is a false positive nonetheless. Mollom learns from this feedback!

CAPTCHA: You can see in the moderation queue which comments are ‘unapproved’ or got a CAPTCHA. This should make it easy to spot potential false positives.

Statistics: Detailed statistics which show how Mollom is performing on your blog.

Review:

Honestly, there is not much I can talk about the effectiveness of the plugin, because testing this requires a few weeks / months before its true results can be seen. However, I am pretty pleased that there is yet another secondary service to Akismet and this one offers a few extra features.

The fallback to the CAPTCHA option is a really good alternative to just blocking the user or the comment landing in the moderation queue and you requiring to manually approve comments.

Mollom is available completely for free with upto 100 successful captcha and 100 legitimate posts, i.e. comments, posts, forum topics etc. per day. If you’re site is any heavier than this, then you’ll need to upgrade to the paid option of Mollum with is 30EUR monthly.

If you’re getting started on the plugin you can refer to the manual for help.

Now, it’s your turn to Review:

We published a list of reviews from our readers today. I’m pleased to have received eight entries in less than four days. This week you have a choice of six plugins to choose from:

You have until Saturday, March 21 – 11.59pm EST to send in your review to submissions AT wltc DOT net with the following information:

Subject line of the email: [APAD Plugin Review]: plugin name. Replace plugin name with the name of the plugin you reviewed.

Content of the Email:

URL of the review on your blog. Make sure this is a direct link to the post

An excerpt of your post. Maximum 50 words. This will be used by us.

Remember you’ll need to link to the corresponding review on our blog when you’re reviewing a plugin. You do not need to review a single plugin. If you so choose, you can review all the six plugins above in individual posts and send us separate emails for each of them! Refer to the original post for more details.

]]>http://weblogtoolscollection.com/archives/2009/03/15/plugin-review-wp-mollom/feed/9Plugin Reviews from our Readershttp://weblogtoolscollection.com/archives/2009/03/15/plugin-reviews-from-our-readers/
http://weblogtoolscollection.com/archives/2009/03/15/plugin-reviews-from-our-readers/#commentsSun, 15 Mar 2009 08:19:29 +0000http://weblogtoolscollection.com/?p=5327Having launched our new User Reviews process for plugins, I didn’t give most our readers any time to get their plugin reviews across to me. In spite of this, we received a total eight plugin reviews for five different plugins.

Here’s the list. Do check out the links and read what the reviewer has to say. Did you like their review? Comment and tell them. Share your experiences of the plugins with them.

WP Greet Box

We reviewed WP Greet Box on January 18. WP Greet Box is a simple plugin lets you show a different greeting message to your new visitors depending on their referrer URL.

WP Greet Box topped our list with three reviews of the eight reviews we received.

JayPee had this to say:

WP Greet Box not only helps you promote your RSS feed and increase your RSS feed readers but having these targeted suggestions on your blog increases your blog exposure and loyal readership. Aside from promoting your RSS feed, encouraging social network bookmarking and article submission, WP Greet Box also displays related posts to the current post which leads to more pageviews and helps reduce bounce rate.

Keenan Payne Pro Blog Tutorials reviewed WP Greet Box, pretty much following the pattern we have out here on WLTC.

Once you install and activate the plugin, it’s all self-explanatory from there. One thing you will more than likely do when you first install the plugin is activate various greeting messages. The default messages that come with the plugin are the ones like Digg, MySpace, FaceBook, and many, many more.

Improved Plugin Installation

We reviewed Improved Plugin Installation on March 1. This plugin is an improvement to the current WP 2.7 plugin installation methods. It allows you to install one or more plugins simply by typing the names of the plugins or the download URLs in a textarea. This means you can install all your favorite wordpress plugins in one go!

IPI came in as second with two plugin reviews of the eight.

The first was by Fyre Vortex:

Gone are the times that you have to scour to the ends of the Internet to find the plugin for WordPress that you wanted. But you couldn’t remember the name of the plugin/author of it.

Or that you just wanted to go to the plugin site, click a bookmarklet (You know, like the Is.Gd and Tr.Im bookarmklets that you drag up to your menu bar and click for something to happen?) and have it installed automatically?

Well, luckily for you, all of the features that I mentioned are all in this one plugin: Improved Plugin Installation!

When WordPress released version 2.7 with better plugin discovery, and installation features, I literally did a happy dance – now let’s hope for something similar for themes but that’s another post for another day. So when I saw the Improved Plugin Installation Plugin mentioned over at Weblog Tools Collection…

Feed Reading Blogroll

We reviewed Feed Reading Blog Roll last week. This plugin provides a sidebar-widget and a template-tag that add an enhanced blogroll to your sidebar. It checks on all your linked sites, when the most recent update has occurred.

FRB received one review from Aggelos:

If you got bored of these flat blogrolls, or if you want to offer something more to your visitors, then the Feed Reading Blogroll is what you are looking for. We are already planing to implement this plugin on our new Thessaloniki section. So, what is this plugin about? How it works? How or why are we going to use it on our new section? Just read the rest of the story.

Simple:Press

This was the first plugin we reviewed on January 4. Simple:Press is a feature rich forum plugin for WordPress. It fully integrates into your WP based site utilizing the same user records and database and displaying on a single WP page.

Simple:Press also received one review from Sebastian:

After a bbPress rant in my last post about forum plugins, I reviewed Simple:Press now. I take you from installation over managing option, setting up forums and customizing the look straight to the posting action. Come with me.

If you haven’t reviewed any plugin this week, don’t worry. For next week, you have the five plugins above which did not receive a review, in addition to the one I’ll be reviewing later today. I’ll give you further details about the same in that post.

]]>http://weblogtoolscollection.com/archives/2009/03/15/plugin-reviews-from-our-readers/feed/1124 Hours left to submit your Reviewshttp://weblogtoolscollection.com/archives/2009/03/14/24-hours-left-to-submit-your-reviews/
http://weblogtoolscollection.com/archives/2009/03/14/24-hours-left-to-submit-your-reviews/#commentsSat, 14 Mar 2009 04:01:00 +0000http://weblogtoolscollection.com/?p=5324You must be aware that we’ve launched a new series where every reader of Weblog Tools Collection can contribute and get featured in return.

We’ve asked you to pick a plugin from our Weekly Plugin Review posts and review the same and then email us the link. Since, the launch, we’ve already received a few entries.

Remember your entries must reach us by Saturday, March 14 – 11.59pm EST

]]>http://weblogtoolscollection.com/archives/2009/03/14/24-hours-left-to-submit-your-reviews/feed/6Would you like to review plugins on WLTC?http://weblogtoolscollection.com/archives/2009/03/11/would-you-like-to-review-plugins-on-wltc/
http://weblogtoolscollection.com/archives/2009/03/11/would-you-like-to-review-plugins-on-wltc/#commentsWed, 11 Mar 2009 21:14:29 +0000http://weblogtoolscollection.com/?p=5308It’s been more than two months since we began our Weekly Plugin Review. During this time, we’ve reviewed nine plugins. All of these posts received a good number of comments, with many requesting more features and with others being mini reviews of the commenter’s experience.

So, why not take this a step further? Starting this week, we’re going to throw up the Plugin Review process to everyone.

So, pick any one plugin from the list above, write a review on your blog and send us an email with the URL of your review.

Email sent? What’s next?

On Sunday, i.e. March 15, we’ll make a post out here on Weblog Tools Collection with a summary of the emails we receive.

Remember not every review will be featured out here. So, here’s some criteria used for selection:

Your review should link to the corresponding plugin review post on WLTC

Your review will have to be at least 250 words. (This may be relaxed if the review is really spectacular).

You’re site should be fit for all ages (family friendly), i.e. sites featuring adult content or with an adult theme will not be listed

Gambling, casino and similar sites will not be listed

We may revise this criteria at a later juncture.

How will this help you?

How does tonnes of traffic sound to you?

Weblog Tools Collection is a highly popular blog with tens of thousands of pageviews every single day. We have over 13,000 subscribers via our feed and our feed is delivered via email to 350+ subscribers.

Writing a good review is a good way of attracting visitors to your blog and converting them to regular readers.

Remember, the list will be formulated on a first come first serve basis. So, send in your email now! The clock is ticking…

]]>http://weblogtoolscollection.com/archives/2009/03/11/would-you-like-to-review-plugins-on-wltc/feed/12Plugin Review: Feed Reading Blogrollhttp://weblogtoolscollection.com/archives/2009/03/08/plugin-review-feed-reading-blogroll/
http://weblogtoolscollection.com/archives/2009/03/08/plugin-review-feed-reading-blogroll/#commentsSun, 08 Mar 2009 18:11:00 +0000http://weblogtoolscollection.com/?p=5270Do you display a list of links a.k.a. blogroll in your sidebar? If you do, then Feed Reading Blogroll is one must have plugin on your WordPress blog.

Description

This plugin provides a sidebar-widget and a template-tag that add an enhanced blogroll to your sidebar. It checks on all your linked sites, when the most recent update has occurred.

The check is performed by reading the date of the most recent feed-item. The feeds must be valid RSS2 or ATOM-feeds, otherwise the plugin cannot read the date-information provided by the feed. The Plugin uses the Google AJAX Feed API to access the feeds.

Demo

Review

For starters, what I love about the plugin is that the author has made an excellent effort to create a complete plugin page on his site. The page contains detailed information about the plugin, including instructions on installation, usage and customization.

Installing Feed Reading Blogroll is just as you would any other plugin. However, you would require to get hold of Google API Key.

You’ll need to navigate to the Settings page of the plugin and start configuring all the options, mainly entering the Google API key. There are tonnes of other configuration options available as well like option to group by category, or to sort by last updated, choose which style to use for the blogroll etc.

Adding links is through WordPress’ inbuilt Links Manager, so you don’t need to worry in case you choose to install the plugin after this review.

You can specify the feed URL that each link uses, which is recommended. If you’re just lazy, the plugin will try to fetch the correct URL using Google’s Feed Fetcher (that’s why you need the API key) and then use this URL.

Once you’ve got everything setup, you’ll want to display the blogroll on your site. For that you can either use the sidebar widget or the template tag. What I’d like to see is some shortcode that I can use to insert the same on a separate page that will house my blogroll, since I don’t display the same in my sidebar.

The plugin comes with internationalization support and is currently available in five languages. If you’re a translator and are willing to translate the plugin, do let the author know. I’m sure he would like that.

A slight warning on using this plugin. It relies heavily on external sites especially for feed fetching and discovering the latest updated time of the feed. As a result, you may encounter some performance issues. I recommend turning off the JavaScript sorting feature and using a caching plugin if you face major problems.

Are you an existing user of Feed Reading Blogroll? If so, do let us know your experience with the plugin. What are your suggestions for the same?

]]>http://weblogtoolscollection.com/archives/2009/03/08/plugin-review-feed-reading-blogroll/feed/16Plugin Review: Improved Plugin Installationhttp://weblogtoolscollection.com/archives/2009/03/01/plugin-review-improved-plugin-installation/
http://weblogtoolscollection.com/archives/2009/03/01/plugin-review-improved-plugin-installation/#commentsSun, 01 Mar 2009 17:15:07 +0000http://weblogtoolscollection.com/?p=5243One thing I’ve loved about WordPress 2.7.x is the ability to install plugins directly from the WordPress Plugin Repository. You don’t need to visit the individual site and instead just search for the plugin you want and then download, install and activate it.

However, even now, you need to go to your WP-Admin to install your plugins.

Description:

This plugin is an improvement to the current WP 2.7 plugin installation methods. It allows you to install one or more plugins simply by typing the names of the plugins or the download URLs in a textarea. This means you can install all your favorite wordpress plugins in one go!

Furthermore, a bookmarklet is included which lets you install plugins directly from an external site.

Review:

Firstly, I love the plugin page. I’ve always encouraged authors to write detailed plugin pages on their blogs as these ensure that your reader easily understands what your plugin has to offer as well what exactly do they need to do to use it. And, Improved Plugin Installation has the necessary details.

The plugin can be used in two main ways. One is from within WordPress Admin and the second is the bookmarklet.

From within the WordPress Admin, you can navigate to Add New Plugin page as usual and scroll down to find a textarea at the bottom. In this you can enter plugin names, plugin page URLS or even direct URLs to the zip files.

Improved Plugin Installation will then download these plugins and install them on your WordPress blog.

The second feature is the bookmarklet. You can install the bookmarklet by navigating to the Add Plugin page and install it from there.

Visit a plugin page, even on external sites and hit the bookmarklet to initiate the installation dialog. You may be asked to login to your blog. This is a necessary security measure and you’ll be able to quickly install yet another plugin.

Without doubt this plugin really enhances the WordPress interface. But, the question remains how often will you use it. For one, it’s excellent when you setup a fresh blog and know you have a certain set of plugins that need to be installed.

Another is if you are in the habit of trying out different plugins, or are a tester.

One feature I would like to see is the ability to mass upgrade plugins. Right now if new versions of two or more plugins are released, I need to update each individually, which can be a pain.

Are you currently using this plugin? What would you like to see in the future?

]]>http://weblogtoolscollection.com/archives/2009/03/01/plugin-review-improved-plugin-installation/feed/13Plugin Review: Post Avatarhttp://weblogtoolscollection.com/archives/2009/02/22/plugin-review-post-avatar/
http://weblogtoolscollection.com/archives/2009/02/22/plugin-review-post-avatar/#commentsSun, 22 Feb 2009 13:21:51 +0000http://weblogtoolscollection.com/?p=5212I always thought that I was the only one who had a problem with the WordPress Upload manager. Seems like, I’m not alone. The author of Post Avatar plugin for WordPress also had similar feelings, which was one of the reasons he wrote this plugin.

Description

This plugin simplifies including a picture when writing posts by allowing the user to choose from a predefined list of images. The image can be automatically shown on the page or output customized with the use of a template tag in themes.

Features

Easy selection of images in the Write Post screen.

Scans images in sub-directories of the image option folder.

Allows the following file types: .jpg, .jpeg, .gif and .png.

Settings display avatars automatically or through the use of template tags.

Customize html output of avatars.

Does not display missing images.

Demo

For an example of what this looks like you can check out the author’s site and notice the 100x100px size images before each post.

Review

The plugin includes detailed installation and usage instructions which is exactly how plugin packages should come.

Using the plugin is extremely simple. You’ll need to first set some default options mainly the directory that is to be used to find the post avatars.

You need to upload these images to this folder in order to use them in your posts. The plugin still doesn’t support this feature, but this is on the charts and hopefully, you’ll see it in a later version.

You can then choose to automatically display the avatars in your posts and / or feeds or you can manually add the code to your template file. I prefer the latter options simply because it gives you more control on where and how exactly you wish to display the avatars.

The main trick after using this avatars is the styling. The plugin allows you to either use the default styles or customize the class you wish to use as well as the HTML that will be used to display the same. IMO, you don’t really need to do this as you can use the default styles and then customize the CSS for their display in your theme.

So, are you using this plugin? Do you like it? What would you like improved?

]]>http://weblogtoolscollection.com/archives/2009/02/22/plugin-review-post-avatar/feed/10Plugin Review: Yawasphttp://weblogtoolscollection.com/archives/2009/02/15/plugin-review-yawasp/
http://weblogtoolscollection.com/archives/2009/02/15/plugin-review-yawasp/#commentsSun, 15 Feb 2009 18:20:09 +0000http://weblogtoolscollection.com/?p=5183Who doesn’t hate spam? Ever since blogs became common place, one thing that we have to worry about is spammers. It is like the constant battle of good vs. evil with the good folks finding means to defend themselves and others and the bad ones finding better means to attack the innocent ones!

Description

Most anti-comment-spambot-plugins focus on user interaction, e.g. captcha or math comment spam protection. Yawasp focuses on handling comment-spam-protection within WordPress. It replaces the names of the comment form fields with random names, protecting your blog from spambots that aim at the default comment field names. Furthermore it adds a blank field, hidden from the user, that needs to be left empty. In addition, the random field names are changed every 24 hours, giving a spambot no chance to adapt to the comment form.

Features

Does not require JavaScript, Cookies or Sessions

No extra field for user input (e.g. Captcha) required

False-positives are nearly impossible

No need to manage spam comments anymore

Easy installation (automatic or manual)

Installation

The installation is more complicated than other plugins as it requires deal of manual intervention (in case the automatic editing fails). Upload the plugin and activate it.

Make the necessary changes in your theme files if necessary and you’re good to go.

The plugin will display the number of spambots blocked on the dashboard.

Review

This plugin is another attempt to protect your blog from spam. However, I still don’t think that this is the first and last stop for protecting your blog.

For one, it only attempts to stop automated spambots attacking your comment form.

And it cannot protect you against manual comment spammers and trackback/pingback spam. Hence, you’d require another plugin like Akismet to form your secondary defense.

I recommend using this plugin if you have been able to identify that your primary amount of spam is spambots attacking your site. By installing this plugin, you’ll notice that with these spambots blocked, you’ll be required to take a look at a much smaller amount of spam in your spam queue.

What I would like to see is what spam is actually blocked by the plugin. The plugin does store which spambots are blocked over a 24 hour period, which works well. However, you won’t see any of the comments blocked.

In case your visitors start to report being blocked, you’ll need to check your comments.php to see if the code is properly installed. I suggest making a few test comments as well getting a few friends to test it out. From my experience, a lot of commenters will just not bother informing you in case they face problems commenting on your site.

So, which antispam plugins do you use? If you’re already using Yawasp, what has been your experience so far? What features would you like to see added?

]]>http://weblogtoolscollection.com/archives/2009/02/15/plugin-review-yawasp/feed/22Plugin Review: MailPresshttp://weblogtoolscollection.com/archives/2009/02/08/plugin-review-mailpress/
http://weblogtoolscollection.com/archives/2009/02/08/plugin-review-mailpress/#commentsSun, 08 Feb 2009 19:51:58 +0000http://weblogtoolscollection.com/?p=5149While WordPress comes inbuilt with the power of RSS, which allows users to subscribe to new posts and view them in their feed readers. For those who prefer the traditional method of receiving updates via email, you have Feedburner or Feedblitz that enable you to do this.

But, what if you want to send a newsletter out to interested readers. One option is to get hold of a remote newsletter solution. However, this can cost you a good amount of money if you have many subscribers. Another option is to install a mailing list software on your server. Yet another is to rely on good old email clients like Outlook or Thunderbird.

specific admin events : registration of a new user, comment to moderate, new comment on your posts.

Screenshot

Review

MailPress is powerful and extendable with addons. Installation requires a few more steps like setting the appropriate permissions for the tmp folder as well as configuring the various settings of the plugin.

Add the necessary code to your template or use the sidebar widget and you are good to go.

The plugin integrates perfectly within WordPress 2.7 and picks up the styles too.

You have complete customization on the look and layout of newsletter, through the use of themes. The plugin comes inbuilt with five themes and you can quickly design your very own.

The plugin creates a Add New Mail screen in your WP-Admin as you can see in the screenshot above. This is what you would use to compose your newsletter. The plugin uses the familiar inbuilt editor to compose your email, you there isn’t any learning curve. It’s as easy as writing a new post, with a few extra options.

Save the new mail as a draft for future use or send it across to your subscribers.

Overall, MailPress is a great plugin that adds a fantastic functionality to your blog. However, this isn’t a plugin that would cater to all and sundry. If you have no interest in writing a newsletter, then you’ve absolutely no use adding this plugin to your blog.

However, if you’re a regular writer and want to add and retain viewers / readers then this plugin enables you to attract a whole lot of visitors who are interested in not only what you have to say in public, but also in the confines of their email inbox.

Lastly, on a minor note, MailPress is already available on a domain. I think it’s time for the author to move it completely on a separate account, instead of as a sub-domain that it currently is.

MailPress already has already seen well over 20,000 downloads so far, so I’m sure atleast some of you have it running. What has been your experience with the plugin so far? Do you prefer this over other newsletter management software?

What features would you like added? And, what would you like removed? Is it fast enough for your needs?

And, if you’re looking to setup a newsletter, does MailPress fulfill your needs?

]]>http://weblogtoolscollection.com/archives/2009/02/08/plugin-review-mailpress/feed/24Plugin Review: Autoclosehttp://weblogtoolscollection.com/archives/2009/02/01/plugin-review-autoclose/
http://weblogtoolscollection.com/archives/2009/02/01/plugin-review-autoclose/#commentsSun, 01 Feb 2009 12:48:25 +0000http://weblogtoolscollection.com/?p=5097The man, the myth, the legend, Ajay D’Souza not only brings you news of the latest WordPress plugins and themes to hit the community but he also has a few plugins under his belt. Today, I’ll be reviewing one of those plugins called Autoclose

Autoclose enables a granular approach to managing pingbacks/comments/trackbacks on both posts and pages. Some of the highlights that the plugin features:

Close Comments on posts/pages older than (number of days).

Close Pingbacks/Trackbacks on posts?

Close Pingbacks/Trackbacks on pages?

Close Pingbacks/Trackbacks on posts/pages older than (number of days).

The ability to configure when the plugin runs its configuration to detect if a comment/trackback/pingback need to be closed off.

Last but not least, Autoclose also provides a checkbox to delete post revisions.

So why would you want to use a plugin like this? For starters, based on my experience with blogging, the conversation on any particular blog post usually only lasts 24-72 hours after it has been published. Rarely do I see an onslaught of comments after a period of seven days have gone by. I know that here on WeblogToolsCollection.com, we receive comments on articles that were published around 2005! But in a normal scenario, you could probably get by with auto closing comments 30 days after the post was published.

A side benefit to auto closing the comment form on old blog posts is that it helps to combat spam. If you have ever configured the Akismet plugin, you may have noticed an additional option that enables the plugin to automatically disregard comments registered as spam on blog posts that are older than a month. This nifty feature has really limited the time I need to spend in my moderation queue as most of the spam comments I receive are for posts that are deep within my archive. Ajay’s Autoclose plugin conveniently takes this ability to close commenting on posts/pages to the next level.

And just in case you were wondering, the plugin works just fine on WordPress 2.7. If you’re already using the Autoclose plugin, leave us a comment and tell us how you’ve used it on your blog!

125 x 125 button advertising has become a rage with almost every blog / site selling advertisement. Out here at Weblog Tools Collection, we use OIO Publisher for this. However, if you’re not interested in purchasing the plugin, then WP125 is an excellent choice for the same.

What is WP125?

The WP125 plugin is designed to make it easy to manage 125×125 banner ads on your blog. The plugin adds a new “Ads” menu to the WordPress admin, featuring submenus for tweaking display settings and adding and removing ads. It’s very customizable, allowing you plenty of options for displaying the ads. It can optionally track the number of times the ads are clicked. The best part is you don’t have to count forward on your calendar anymore. You can just set how long an ad should run, and it will figure out the end date for you, and it will take the ad down automatically. The plugin does a lot to make it easy for you to manage your 125×125 ads quickly so you can get back to what’s really important: Blogging.

Features:

One or two column ad display, and support through template tags to implement your own unconventional design.

Show as many ads as you want, and in either manual or random order

Keep track of how many times an ad is clicked

When creating a new ad, you don’t have to calculate the end date yourself. Just input how many days you wish the ad to run for, and the correct date will be applied. The ad will be automatically taken down when the time comes.

When an ad run is over, the record is archived on the Inactive ads screen, so you can check on the final click count, or revive the ad for another run.

When an ad slot is empty, a placeholder ad of your choice will be displayed. This could be a “Your Ad Here” image linking to a page with statistics and pricing, or an affiliate link.

Optionally receive email notifications when an ad expires. Useful if you send follow-up messages to advertisers, or if you just want to stay in the know.

Our Review:

Getting started with WP125 is easy. Download the plugin from the repository and install it on your WordPress blog.

The plugin creates a new Ads menu that you can use to configure all settings. You can select the number of ads you want to sell as well as if you want to stack them in one or two columns.

The next step is to integrate them into your blog template. You have two options for this. One is to use <?php wp125_write_ads(); ?> where you want to display the ads. I suggest putting this into your sidebar.

If you don’t like the one or two column setting, you can choose to custom layout your advertisements. Use <?php wp125_single_ad(num); ?> where num is the number of the ad you wish to display.

Overall this is a really good plugin that will get you started with selling adverting on your blog. There are several features that can be added to this.

The author has the following plans:

The ability to recieve email notifications a few days in advance of an ad expiring, instead of just the moment the ad expires and is taken down. This will allow you to contact the advertiser and send a follow-up before the ad is taken down. The number of days before the advance notice is configurable.

Some changes are being made to make the plugin a little more friendly under WordPress 2.7. A few usability tweaks, mainly, but they will improve the workflow noticeably.

The ads will have alternating CSS classes applied to them, in the fashion of the WordPress “oddcomment” class. This will enable even greater flexibility in your custom styling if you wish.

One more option that can be added is the creation of ad slots. This will ensure you don’t need to use the code for displaying single ads all over but instead use a code for ad slots.

I know the plugin is called WP125, but it would be great to see added support for other banner sizes including the popular 468×60 etc.

Do you sell advertising on your blog? If so, what service do you use for the same?

Are you using WP125? What is it that you love about the plugin? And what is it that you would love to see improved? If you’re not using WP125, which plugin are you using for advertising?